jhfrench:Lazuli buntings are striking birds found in western…
Wednesday, June 12th, 2019
Lazuli buntings are striking birds found in western North America. I love that even the females—which, like with most birds, are drabber than the male—have a tinge of blue! ⠀⠀ This piece is a companion to my indigo bunting painting, and will appear in the next issue of Living Bird in a profile featuring related eastern and western species. Having recently moved from coast to coast, it was a nice project to tie together my past year of birding! ⠀⠀ Lazuli buntings for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
LAZBs are known as “fire followers”. They like the flowered hillsides that grow up in the early years after a chaparral wildfire.
If you’ve followed me long enough you know that many of my favorite local birding sites burned in the massive Thomas Fire in December of 2017. We’re now T-plus-18-months, and the flowering hillsides are full of these beautiful birds. I saw a female this morning; here’s a photo of a male that I took a few weeks ago.
Reposted from https://lies.tumblr.com/post/185551239041.
